Quick Look: Sony VAIO X Series notebook

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The 1.5-pound, half-inch thick Sony VAIO X Series notebook is easily one of the most impressive portable computers I’ve seen in quite some time. I can’t convey how light it is. It seems to defy logic. My brain doesn’t understand that it’s seeing my hand hold up an 11.1-inch notebook that weighs less than half of what most other notebooks its size weigh.

It’s not a super powerful computer. No sir. But Sony’s managed to stuff a nimble 2GHz Atom CPU (Z550) under the carbon fiber hood. It’s not cheap either, starting at $1299. If you can mentally get past the whole $1300 netbook thing, you get a nice array of features – solid state drive, GPS, Bluetooth, Verizon 3G, Wi-Fi, 2GB of RAM, standard 3-hour battery and an unbelievably lengthy 12+ hour battery that doesn’t seem to add much weight at all. Perhaps best of all is that unless you’re doing some relatively aggressive multitasking, using this computer doesn’t feel much like using a netbook at all.

The screen is an 11.1-inch LED backlit affair at 1366×768, there’s a tiny but relatively functional island keyboard, multitouch trackpad (it’s too small to effectively use the multitouch features), webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium, Ethernet, memory card reader, VGA out, and two USB ports. And again, it’s unbelievably light.

I’ll be putting the machine through its paces and will have a full review up shortly.